Thread by @hunterw

I was just talking to @thrasherxy about his exciting new book and it reminded me of something

https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1262848245212086277

I was born in 1984. My moms are gay and so was so much of our community as I grew up. There were five people I was particularly close with as a little kid that died from AIDS.

It was such a strange crisis – and so weird to experience as a child. People just disappeared. There was so much stigma. Two of my parents' friends didn't want them to tell me they were sick. They went away to die in private. I didn't find out what happened until I was older.

One of our friends and his partner died with us all around. There was incredible pain. Lesions. It is a brutal sickness.

Years later when I was going into j school, I was taking the test and it included an essay. I wrote about how watching the AIDS crisis helped make me want to be a reporter. It showed me people need their stories told.

This is me with my friends Richard and Phillip. They're not here any more, but they had a real impact on me.